Itazura's Bard Puller Guide/Obstacles to Exp/Hour
There is only one true measurement of an exp party's performance: Experience Points per Hour. That's not "300 Exp on that last mob!", nor "Did you see my bad ass xxxx damage on WS?" It's experience points, per hour--everything else is just a distraction. Every Bard's role is to enhance the exp/hour. No exception. To achieve good exp/hour, though, group members must understand what are the major obstacles facing parties. Obstacles to Exp/Hour * Over-hunting: This is when party hunts monsters which take too long to kill or are too dangerous to the party members. Keeping up the buff songs on melees and Ballad on BLM and healers is about the only thing a Bard can do to compensate for this, and the songs can only help to a small extend. Stomping feet and demand a new camp with more appropriate targets is likely a better solution. Sometimes, not Level Sync to the lowest member, and go for a level or two above can solve this, but that's not something to count on. * Under-hunting: This is when party hunts monsters which do not give enough exp per kill. Pulling faster is how a Bard can help, but that's not a cure all. Level Sync to a lower level may help, but again, not something that's always possible. * Death: Nothing kills exp/hour faster than a party member getting K.O.'ed, especially if it's a tank or healer. A Bard with mage support job needs to keep an eye on HP of party members, and prioritize emergency cures over buffs and pulls--otherwise, exp will drop to 0 for 5 minutes. Once again, emergency cures first--worry about songs and pulls after. The same goes for dangerous pulls; dead puller means lousy exp--do not link fast moving monsters, and do not bring critters 18 levels above the party's tank. * Bad Tanking: Notice it's bad tanking, not bad tank. Even though the tank shoulders a lion's share of the burden, it's everyone's responsibility to ensure the party is function smoothly, with the monster mostly attacking the tank and not melees or mages. Bad tanking is most noticeable when mages or Dancer is using excessive amount of MP or TP to cure, especially curing the non-tanks. :Unfortunately, this is yet another something Bard cannot do a lot about. Help keep the tank high in HP can encourage some players to use Provoke more often for the Bards with mage support job; switching to March song(s) can help Utsusemi based tanks with recast timers; angling (or Pianissimo) the Ballad on the Paladin can help him last longer and cast more spells. Those little things can help, but nothing a Bard does can force a reticent tank to perform or truly hold back a showoff DD sponging off the curing resources. * Replacements: Someone leaving the party interrupts the fights. A player is distracted and inattentive to the fights while looking for his replacement. May cause confusion as new arrival may not know how the party has been operating. Often need additional time to renegotiate who performs which roles. Worse still, a replacement is like a yawn; once one person bails a party early, another would follow, then yet another--and the last replacement to arrive gets to camp about 35 seconds before the third leader quits the party and disband it. :Simply put, a Bard should help by not contributing to the problem. Refuse replacement invites. Ask to make sure everyone joining the party at the beginning has reasonable amount of time, and does not include those "I'm 2373 TNL and I'm leaving as soon as I get my level!" people. Do not put up seek flag unless intend to stay in party for a decent duration (2 hours to 3.5 hours at camp). Do not look for a replacement--a Bard puller should be too busy to even contemplate such a thing anyway. :Replacement is a stupid way to party--and usually produces a low exp/hour result. * Poor balance: An exp party is a balancing act between damage output, damage mitigation, support, and healing power. Too much or too little of any of the element required makes for an unbalanced party, which can result in slow killing speed, or worse, deaths of party members. ** A trend started with ToAU is the tendency toward single back line mage--usually Red Mage--shouldering the full load of hasting, enfeebling, and healing. This makes room for a DD heavy front line, but also makes the party very vulnerable when the mage run low on MP. Anytime a DD picks pressing WS marco instead of Utsusemi when low on shadows is potentially a disastrous drop in the mage's MP. ** Most WS spam setups in general and single mage party configuration in particular demand the front line jobs to be disciplined with using /NIN and religious with keep up Utsusemi. A lot of DDs do not understand it is better all DDs are well protected by Utsusemi and no one DD does much more damage than others, and insist on /SAM and /WAR for "doing more damage." ** With decently geared DDs, chaining isn't difficult with two healer set up. With some care, it also makes viable DDs using /SAM and /WAR to increase damage output viable. * Bad Pulling: Now this, a Bard is well suited to address. A "bad puller" means almost the same thing as a "slow puller" in many people's minds, though pullers who get themselves killed or keep bringing back unintended links also fit the bill. Links often means the party has to use up resources faster to handle (or die/wipe). A death on pull brings nothing but a five minute long, 0 exp headache to the party. Slow pulling is... a waste of everyone's time. :Buff songs may take a while to apply, but do not wear off all that fast. That means a Bard has time on his hands between songs. In the early years of FFXI, that meant helping out with bar- spells in parties without White Mage or someone with native enhancing magic and /WHM, and back-up cure. In a modern party with sufficient curing powers and enough mages, though, those activity may still helpful, but no longer essential. Instead, the best use of the free time is to pull. :While the buffs/Ballad songs are up, a Bard away takes nothing from the party's firepower, unlike using a DD (such as a THF or RNG) to pull. This means a Bard can have the next target ready at camp just as the previous one dies, speeding up pulling without taking a DD or mage away from the fight prematurely. :Further more, a Bard has two Lullaby songs to keep critters asleep. That means a Bard can pull early, and just leave the critter sleeping at camp, while the party is working on a current target--and resume reapplying buffs. This ensures the party can quickly go from one critter to the next despite uneven damage output (BLM uses a big spell, some melee WS'ed twice or landed far bigger hits than normal, etc.), with no break in between. This is called staged pulling, and is the goal of every Bard puller. :(Those same Lullabies are also good for getting out of jams from pulling links or dangerous prey, by the way.)